House's Decision
by sabrewolf1001
Summary: This is my first stab at fanfic writing, I tried to stay true to the characters. House treats yet another strange case while his team learns why he won't do the Ketamine boosters. I've gotten about halfway done, please r&r, thanks to those who already hav
1. Chapter 1

"Kate, put away your toys," Ms. Kepper said, as the rest of the children in the classroom turned to stare at little Katie Watkins standing by herself in the far end of the Kindergarten class. "Katie…" Ms. Kepper stood and began to walk over to Katie.

Kate turned slowly to stare back at them, her eyes blank as she began to babble incoherently before she collapsed to the ground, locked in convulsions. The teacher hit the emergency button that was installed in the classroom next to the door, and footsteps were immediately heard in the hallway outside.

"It was either a hooker marathon, or an all-night monster truck rally," James Wilson said with a slight grin as he sat at House's kitchen table staring up at his exhausted looking friend. "Since I didn't hear anything, I'm guessing monster-trucks."

House glared slightly at him as he limped into the room. "For your information, I was studying how loudly you snore and how the sound can travel between a total of 5 walls and the pillow over my head."

Wilson laughed. "You think I'm bad?"

"No, I said that to boost your confidence."

Wilson looked up sharply as House's phone rang, and watched as House ignored it. "Aren't you going to answer it?" Wilson asked, starting towards the phone.

"That would take all the surprise out of who is on the other end." House mumbled as Wilson reached the phone and switched it on.

"It's Cuddy," he said as House started coughing loudly.

"I think I'm dying, that Chinese last night is really doing a number." House shouted as he headed towards the living room.

"No, he's fine, we'll be in as soon as we can." Wilson hung up the phone and turned to House. "Patient, young girl seizured in the classroom."

House shrugged as he flipped on the TV. "Seizure disorder. Now if she grew a third eye, I'd consider checking into it."

Wilson looked at him with his quiet thoughtfulness. "As usual, your constant concern for patients shines through. She was unresponsive to speech prior to the seizure, and also began to speak incoherently. The teacher said that she had been loosing vocabulary leading up to this event."

House's eyes shone with interest as he stared intently at nothing while he thought for a moment. He stood up suddenly, limping towards the door. "Let's go then, a child's life hangs in the balance Wilson! No time to waste."

Wilson sighed in resignation and followed House out the door.


	2. Chapter 2

"Differential diagnosis of an incoherent, seizing five-year-old. Go."

Foreman, Cameron, and Chase grabbed the patient folders and began to flip through them. "Brain tumor, the seizures were pre-existing. Brain tumor on the cognitive speech area of the brain, disrupts the neurons, explains all the symptoms." Foreman sat back with a satisfied grin while the others nodded.

"Well don't just look at me expectantly, go find out. Scan her head, see if anything's lurking around in there." The other three filed out of the room.

House winced on his way to his office and popped a Vicodin before sitting down at his desk to look over some much-neglected Sudoku puzzles. Cuddy walked in and House didn't glance up. "Busy here, doing important doctor stuff. You wouldn't understand, so I wont try to make you."

Cuddy ignored his comment. "Back on all three legs again I see."

House stopped and looked up with his jaw set. "No, it's for style."

"The Ketamine treatment has boosters. Why don't you let us try that?"

House rubbed his temples in slight annoyance. "Someone needs to keep Abbott Labs in business through Vicodin sales."

"House, you're being unreasonable. A treatment every couple months instead of you're constantly carrying that bottle around. Who knows, maybe one of the treatments will be permanent."

"But you don't know that. I won't do it."

"So you'd rather live in pain instead of doing this treatment." Cuddy stated flatly as House looked up at her, sadness radiating from his eyes for just a moment.

"Wow, you just summed up everything I was trying to say." House's pager went off and he looked at it quickly. "Fantastic timing. Cuddy, you should give them a raise."

"House." Cuddy said at his retreating form.

He half turned to look back at her. "People dying, they need me."

"Consider the treatment."

House opened the door with his cane and continued out the door.

"Your timing is impeccable." House said, bursting through the MRI door.

"So you're going to do the Ketamine boosters?" Cameron asked, not looking up at him.

"Who said anything about Ketamine boosters?" House shot back, and Cameron winced. "Fear not dear Cameron, dating me is more fun when you can constantly remind me of," he raised his voice to mimic Cameron, "just how bad my leg is." His voice dropped back to normal. "It keeps me thinking of new comebacks. Chase might get jealous though, watch out for him."

Chase glared at House for a moment before Foreman shoved the MRI results under House's nose. "No tumor. Its something else."

"Something else? Really? I thought all negative tests proved a positive." House grabbed the MRI and studied it intently for a moment before tossing it back down. He sighed and frowned. "Do an LP, talk to the parents, see if she's been using PCP in the classroom. They're starting earlier now."

Cameron stopped him. "She's in Kindergarten. What's a lumbar puncture supposed to prove? And I somehow doubt a five-year-old is using PCP."

"If you're going to question everything I do, write a memo. At least that I can file in the round can under my desk." House limped out of the room while the rest of them stared at his back.

"I almost miss smelly sweaty running House." Chase said.

"Sarcasm King is back." Foreman said, leaving the room also.

Cameron and Chase followed after giving each other a glance that they both knew Foreman was dead on in his remark.


	3. Chapter 3

House stood on his balcony absently throwing sunflower seeds over the side. Wilson stepped out of his office and looked over the side also, staying quietly on his side of the short wall. He saw House was aiming for an empty flowerpot three stories down and grinned inwardly. "Keeping busy I see."

"That's why I have a dedicated team. They can even read! The dark one offered me a new car every month. I'd have to start them with a screwdriver though."

Wilson sighed and decided to make House just a bit more annoyed. "About the treatments."

House turned to him suddenly and pierced Wilson with his eyes. "Have you ever been on a deserted island? And the helicopter comes to save you, drops you back off at home, then picks you up and leaves you back on the island?"

Wilson looked taken back at the comment. "Well, no. I get the metaphor though."

House turned back to look out over the campus. "The window of hope has no way of staying open. It's torture to think 'Maybe this time the treatment will work'. I don't want to keep hoping and being crushed when it doesn't stick."

"Then you go back in a couple months and get it done again."

House closed his eyes and Wilson's heart went out to him. He, of course, knew exactly what House was trying to say. The treatment was addictive and sometimes dangerous. House knew what he was up against with it, and chose, for once, the safe route of how things had always been. "Check out my patient, will you? Just for fun." And he turned to go back inside. Wilson bowed his head in defeat.


	4. Chapter 4

Chase and Foreman did the lumbar puncture on the young girl while Cameron spoke with the parents.

"I don't know what is wrong with her. We thought she was going deaf because she wouldn't respond to some things that we said, and started getting items mixed up. Her hearing is fine, and her other doctor said it was just the age and that there was nothing to worry about." The mother worridley said.

"When did the seizures start?" Cameron asked, glancing back at the other two working on the girl.

"Around when she was three years old. What do you think it is? Will the test you're doing help her?"

"Its just a diagnostic test, not a cure. We are working as hard as we can to help her and we will figure out what is wrong."

The mother smiled with the glimmer of hope and Cameron felt guilty all of a sudden. They had no idea where to start now that they had ruled out cancer and brain tumors, and this lady thought they were hours from a cure.

There was a rustle of sudden activity behind them and both Cameron and the mother turned to look. The girl was seizing again and the other two doctors fought to keep her airways open. Finally it stopped and everything returned to normal. Katie's mother was white as a ghost. "You just never get used to that." She said, going in the room and gently taking her daughter's hand.

"Hi baby, you'll be better soon."

Katie squinted at her mother, then smiled softly. She pointed to the TV. "Couch!" she said.

All three doctors looked to the TV that was off. "You want to watch a couch on TV?" Foreman asked, confused.

The girl nodded excitedly. Chase cocked his head and raised a glass in front of her eyes. "Can you first tell me what this is?"

"Truck!" The girl exclaimed, proudly.

"What's happening? She sometimes has trouble finding the right words for things, but has never blatenly called them the wrong thing." Her mother said.

"Butter. I read butter." The girl finished, hugging her mother.

The doctors looked bewildered at each other.


	5. Chapter 5

"I hear House is refusing the Ketamine boosters." Wilson said as Cuddy sat in front of him in his office.

"So he's going to continue to be someone who is defined by his pain." Cuddy finished for him.

Wilson tilted his head slowly. "I don't think that's quite it."

Cuddy looked at him, not understanding the meaning. "What do you mean?"

"House has always been like this. Its nothing new. He's grateful enough to be alive, he knows how it could be with his leg, and he also understands the risks more than anyone else. He doesn't want his window of hope smashed every time the pain comes back. Its like suffering the first days of pain all over again every time he needs the boosters. That's no way to live."

"Staying high on Vicodin is no way to live, Wilson."

Wilson shook his head. "I'm with him on this one. You can't force him to do anything, and you'd be a fool to try."

Cuddy shook her head. "Fine, fine." She got up to leave and Wilson watched her go. He buried his face in his hands as he thought of his friend and the pain he endured.

"Is the wombat of good intentions gone yet?" House asked, sticking his head in the door.

Wilson chuckled. "Yes, shes gone."

"Good, I can go back to my own office instead of evesdropping in yours."

"What? My God House…"

But he was already gone.


	6. Chapter 6

It was long past seven when Wilson noticed the incessant bouncing ball that House tossed against the wall when he was thinking had finally stopped. "Hey, are you ready to go?" he asked House, leaning in his office.

House looked up from his computer and glanced at the clock. "Yeah, you're buying me Chinese tonight, right? Three legged cripple discount tonight."

Wilson looked at him with disbelief before giving in. "Sure."

House was quiet the whole way home with the Chinese in the backseat and Wilson knew he was thinking about the last test. Brain scan came out clean, LP had come out clean, the other various blood tests had come out clean. House couldn't yet grasp what was wrong with the young girl. The puzzle grew, and with it, House's interest.


	7. Chapter 7

"So give me something I want to hear." House said sharply the next morning to his staff.

"All the tests we have run have come out clean." Chase said.

"Did you run the tests yourself?" House snapped back.

"No, we all did."

"So there is no reason to think the tests came out normal because Chase screwed up." House sat back and dry-swallowed a Vicodin. He turned to the whiteboard and studied the symptoms listed on it. "What makes a kid call an apple an orange?" He said softly to the board. "What about Landau-Kleffner Syndrome?" He turned to them.

Cameron shook her head. "Its too rare, and even more rare for the patient to have seizures during the day."

"I like really really rare. Whats the one test you haven't run yet?"

They looked at him, racking their brains. "Comon, you've almost exhausted the possibilities, what haven't you run?"

"EEG. That should tell us." Cameron said, and House almost smiled his approval.

"The symptoms don't all fit," Foreman broke in.

"Why, did you steal some of them while my back was turned? Run the test." House said, and the other three got up to leave.

"How's your leg?" Cameron said softly when she paused as she walked past him.

"Well it's still attached. More than what I could have said had Stacy and Cuddy had their way."

"But it hurts." The statement, not a question.

"Of course it hurts. That doesn't make me any less pleasant to be around though."

Cameron shook her head slightly and walked out of the room. House frowned and sighed. He looked at the whiteboard again when his pager went off.


	8. Chapter 8

"We didn't have time to do any tests, she became combative and had another seizure." Chase said, as he saw House come into the patient's room. He glanced at the young girl with her wrists in restraints, and took a good look at Chase with an already swelling cheek from being struck by the combative child.

"Fighting with children now, are we?" House asked with a slight grin, "Mommy will be proud."

"House, you're not helping." Cameron cut in.

"Well, I don't have to hold her down or anything, those straps are doing just fine." He sighed and thought for a moment. "It shouldn't matter if she's unconscious. Do the EEG now. So I can put her back on her Tegretol so she can get out of the restraints."

Foreman looked at House oddly and grabbed the girls chart. As he had figured, there was none of the anti-seizure medication listed in the drug chart. "House, you're going to kill her." He said quietly.

"I won't if you run the EEG. She's asleep, she can't hurt you."

Chase sighed and went to re-schedule the test while the other two looked at House like he was crazy.

"You can't just take a girl off her medication like that." Cameron scolded.

"If I'm right this time, the test will prove it." House said.

"Are you still on that Landau-Kleffner Syndrome?" Foreman asked in disbelief.

"I just think kids who need restraints to keep their aggressions at bay are cute." House shot back. "The symptoms fit. You, clever neurologist, should realize that."

"Yeah, I guess we will see huh?"

"Foreman! This is a team! There is no 'I' in team!" House said sarcastically.

"But didn't you tell me once that there is an 'M' and an 'E'?"

"Stop!" Cameron cut through the bickering with a voice that was more forceful than her usual, and the two turned to look at her.

"Hey Foreman, I think Cameron wants to be on your team." House said, twirling his cane around.

Foreman closed his eyes as he finally started to laugh.


	9. Chapter 9

_Thanks for the comments so far guys! This story will be wrapping up soon, I just wanted to get the chapter thing all sorted out- I added more to the end of this. One more chapter, hopefully by tonight._

"No abnormal activity." Foreman said, glancing up from the results of the EEG.

"Impossible." House said flatly, grabbing them from Foreman's hand. He studied them for a moment before heading to his office without a word, leaving the other three to stare at each other in bewilderment. He came back a few minutes later to stare at his whiteboard again, on which he had written 'aggressivness' under everything else. "It fits." He said quietly to himself. He was loosing and fast and he knew it. They were missing a piece of the puzzle, and he needed to find it fast.

"What next?" Cameron finally broke the silence.

"Well, its five o'clock, which is quitting time for you kids. We will finish in the morning." House grabbed his jacket and headed down the hallway.

"He's up to something." Chase said, and the others nodded. "Wait a bit, then we will go find him. His bike is here, we can tell if he leaves or not."

They waited a half-hour and by then, House's bike was gone. Chase shrugged. "Guess I was wrong then. Figures…"

Cameron acted like she was leaving for the day, but knew something wasn't right still. His bike was gone, but she had the feeling House was still there. She searched the hospital for him and didn't see him anywhere. Feeling defeat and almost betrayed that House would ignore a case like this, she started to head out of the hospital to go home. She paused at the front door of the hospital and turned back to go to the girl's room. Just to make sure that she was okay.

She walked in the room and was stunned to see House sitting next to the girl with the EEG machine hooked up to her, and the girl was awake and talking to House, hard as he tried to ignore her and check the readouts on the machine. He looked up and met her eyes. "I thought I said go home." He said.

"Where's your bike?"

"Wilson wanted to have some fun for once in his life. And he wanted to go pick up chicks. Its such a chick magnet."

"Wilson can't ride."

"That's why the bike is insured."

The girl's sentences started to become scrambled and House counted slowly down from ten. When he hit zero, the girl started to have another seizure. He worked to keep her airways open with Cameron's help, and soon the girl quieted back down. House studied the EEG readout and his eyes lit up. He pulled a table with medications on it and Cameron cut in. "What are you giving her?"

"Ten CCs of corticosteroids and fifteen CCs of an anticonvulsant."

"Then it was Landau-Kleffner Syndrome." The familiar deep voice cut through the room, and House and Cameron looked up to see Chase and Foreman standing at the door. "You were right."

"No one listens to me anymore! Wouldn't you rather have gone home like I told you to a couple hours ago and seen your families?" House said.

Chase laughed. "Nah, we thought dinner with you would be so much more enjoyable."

"Little Kangaroo pie?" House said in a surprisingly good accent and they all smiled. He slowly got up and handed the chart to Cameron. "Put the Tegretol back on, along with the corticosterioids. And speech therapy, we want her to be able to call her boyfriend a dog without it being a mistake."

"Why corticosteriods?" Cameron asked before she wrote it on the sheet.

House sighed. "Landau-Kleffner Syndrome creates weird brain waves, like the ones we missed the first time around because she wasn't having a seizure at the time. Usually it doesn't work like that, but this time it did. The corticosteroids will help settle the brain activity and the seizures will stop by themselves by the time she matures. Its give or take weather she gets her correct speech back, but we probably caught it early enough to where it should leave no lasting effects. Now what about dinner?"

The three of them checked pagers and cell phones and mumbled excuses as they left the room to go home. House tapped his cane on the floor and turned to look at the girl, who looked back at him with quiet, honest eyes. She opened her mouth slowly and with a smile said "thank you doctor House!" and grinned proudly at herself.

House's brows knit together as he nodded his approval and he himself left to go home, retrieving his bike from where he had hidden it in the underground garage.


	10. Chapter 10

_Short chapter, just a wind down of the story. Hope you enjoyed it!_

Wilson wasn't home when House got there, so House helped himself to Wilson's dinner that sat in the fridge so calmly with a note attached to it 'Do NOT Eat'. Grinning, House took the note and attached it to an old box of baking soda in the corner of the fridge and put Wilson's dinner in the microwave. He sat down at his piano bench and took his Vicodin out of his pocket. He stared at the bottle, almost defying it, trying to be stronger than it. He finally sighed deeply and opened the bottle, dropping one in his hand, staring at it for a moment before throwing it in his mouth. He placed the bottle gingerly back in his pocket.

The microwave beeped impatiently, but House ignored it and instead began to strike notes on the piano, slowly at first until he warmed up, then he was lost in the music. When Wilson got home, he found House asleep on the couch, and the dinner that he had prepared and tricked House into claiming it as his was still sitting in the microwave. Wilson shook his head and went to dump the dinner into the garbage when he saw House's half full Vicodin bottle in the trash. He looked up sharply at House, then smiled slightly.


End file.
